


If I lead, will you follow?

by apolesen



Category: Doctor Who: Eighth Doctor Adventures - Various Authors
Genre: Dancing, EDA: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street, F/M, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-13
Updated: 2013-04-13
Packaged: 2017-12-08 09:20:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/759731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apolesen/pseuds/apolesen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor introduces Scarlette to the dances of the future. Things of the present come to the surface.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If I lead, will you follow?

**Author's Note:**

> Set during "The Adventuress of Henrietta Street", so vague spoilers for that book.

It was a quite day in the house on Henrietta Street. Katya had disappeared upstairs with a customer not an hour ago, and Scarlette thought they would still be some time. Lisa-Beth was similarly occupied. Rebecca had gone to the bookshop in search of some treaties the Doctor had wanted. Where the Doctor’s companions were, Scarlette did not know, but it was not her business to do so. Juliette’s whereabouts was her business, however, but she did not want to worry herself with that now. She told herself that she was probably with Emily, and that she could not spend her life controlling the girl. She wasted too much time worrying about her as it was, and today was a much too pleasant day to ruin. 

Scarlette had decided not to work, and the Doctor had claimed that he could not do anything done before Rebecca returned with his new books. Therefore, they had settled in the salon, Scarlette curled up in an armchair with a novel and the Doctor by the pianoforte. At first he simply sat with his hands on the keys while Scarlette read. She glanced up at him occasionally, and reflected that he looked like he was very far away. She wondered what he was thinking about, and whether he was in pain. He was not well, and the return of his TARDIS had not made him any better. When she considered it, however, she thought he looked more like pondering than brooding. Perhaps he was simply thinking some new problem through. 

Then the far-away look disappeared, and he started playing. He played pieces she had heard and pieces which were unfamiliar, pieces which seemed like most music she knew and pieces which sounded odd to her ears. She put away her book and listened, impressed. He played exceptionally well, lead by both skill and passion. After a particularly heart-felt pieces, he seemed to calm down a little, and played a jaunty minuet instead. Only a few bars in, he caught her eye and smiled. She smiled back and, guessing he would enjoy it, got to her feet and started dancing. The salon was not big enough for an actual minuet, but she could imagine the other couples as she moved around the room. She crossed the path of invisible dancers, touched fingers with some ghostly gentleman and finally curtsied to her non-existent partner. 

When she straightened up, she saw the Doctor watching her, as he leaned back in his chair and stroked his beard. Then his hand left his chin and he said: 

‘You dance well.’ 

‘You play well,’ she answered. He shrugged. 

‘I prefer the violin.’ 

‘You should get one. I’d like to hear you play.’ 

‘Perhaps,’ he said noncommittally. Returning his attention to the instrument, he played one of the melodies which he had played before, a beautiful but melancholic piece which cut off suddenly. He stared at the keys as if the rest of the music might play itself. 

‘What’s that?’ 

‘I have no idea,’ the Doctor admitted and smiled at her, his introversion suddenly gone. ‘Never mind.’ Scarlette decided to drop it. 

‘Do you ever dance?’ This made him laugh. 

‘It’s not unheard of.’ 

She watched him for a moment, and then reached her hand out. 

‘Dance with me, then.’ 

‘With no music?’ he said, but stood up. 

‘You can hum something,’ she said. ‘You have a lovely voice.’ He took her hand. 

‘I’ll feel a fool, humming on my own,’ he said, looking her in the eye. 

‘Fine,’ Scarlette said and cocked her head. ‘We’ll both do it. Do you know this one?’ She hummed the beginning of a minuet, and he nodded. ‘Good.’ 

She started humming, and he joined in as they danced. Their movements, as they weaved through the hypothetical columns of dancers, were slow and dignified. Scarlette hummed through her lips, but the Doctor soon grew weary of it, and started singing the piece with a combination of dance instructions and meaningless syllables serving as the lyrics. 

‘La-la-la-la, na-na-na, and cast out, and around, and cross, and cross again, and promenade, la-la-la...’ He was so focused on it that when Scarlette reached the end of the piece, he almost started again from the beginning. When he realised what he had done, he simply laughed off the embarrassment and kissed Scarlette’s hand. Then, still holding it, the Doctor stood and looked her in the face. 

‘I’ve always found minuets a bit dull,’ he said finally. 

‘They’re _dignified_.’

‘Yes, and dignified is dull.’ 

Scarlette laughed at his reasoning. 

‘Yes, they’re a bit stiff, but I like the music.’ She thought she saw a sudden glint in the Doctor’s eye. ‘You look like you’re scheming, Jack.’ 

‘Yes!’ he exclaimed, suddenly animated. He raised her hand and twirled her under his arm. ‘I have an idea - you’ll love it! Wait!’ And with that he let go of her and ran to his box, parked in a corner. She watched after him, feeling dizzy after being twirled and being touched. His childish enthusiasm was exciting, and even if he was a man of odd tastes, she believed him when he had said that she was going to enjoy whatever he had in mind. 

When the Doctor appeared a few minutes later, he was carrying a rectangular wooden box with a brass horn attached to it. With a sigh, he put it down on the pianoforte. 

‘What’s that?’ Scarlette asked and approached. 

‘It’s a gramophone,’ he said brightly. ‘Early twentieth century. German.’ She looked at it, trying to fathom that this was an object from the future. Slowly, she reached out and touched it. It felt perfectly solid - indeed, completely ordinary. Now that she was standing closer to it, she saw that it was not just a box. It had a circular indentation with a peg in the middle, with some kind of metal arm. On the side, there was a lever. 

‘Gramophone?’ she repeated. The Doctor nodded. ‘It’s... a written sound?’ 

‘Sound written down, yes. There was another version which they called phonograph, then they decided to call all of them gramophones, in the end,’ the Doctor said very rapidly, still beaming. ‘It plays music.’ 

‘It’s a music-box?’ 

‘No. The music’s here.’ He retrieved several square envelopes, roughly the size of the box. Out of one of them, he slid a black disc. Scarlette stared. 

‘No.’ 

‘Yes!’ 

‘How?’ she exclaimed. 

‘It’s called a record - because it’s a record of the music. You see those groves?’ The Doctor held it up for her to inspect. She brought her face close to it, fascinated by the odd material. ‘That’s where the music is stored. Then the arm reads it, and it comes out-’ he tapped the cone with his finger ‘-here.’ He had started squirming, like a child annoyed at a delay, so Scarlette straightened up and watched him put the record onto the contraption and started pulling the lever. The record started spinning. Carefully, the Doctor moved the arm to the edge of the record. A crackling noise was heard, but it did not last long. Only seconds later, music welled out of the horn. 

Scarlette stared at it, transfixed. She knew that this was some ingenious solution from the future, but she did not _understand_ it. Even if she was a rational woman, she half-expected to find that the Doctor had smuggled an entire orchestra into the salon along with his TARDIS. Not wanting to seem a fool, she watched the spinning record intently, trying to fathom it. Now when she was growing used to the idea of the music being in the disc, she could still hear the crackling hiss of the needle in the groves. 

‘How did they manage this?’ she asked, knowing that the Doctor was watching her. 

‘It’s simple enough. I can construct something to show you the workings. But, Scarlette...’ He put his hands on her shoulders. ‘What do you think of the music?’ 

She had been so fascinated by the gramophone that she had not even considered the music itself. Now she stood still and listened to it. Before long, she was swaying in time with it, the Doctor’s hands still on her shoulders. 

‘I like it,’ she said. ‘It’s very... soft. Even.’ 

‘No frills?’ the Doctor suggested. She laughed and turned around. 

‘Is this what they will dance to in the twentieth century?’ she asked. The Doctor smiled. 

‘It gets a little more noisy in the twentieth century. This is just next century.’ He took a step backwards and, bowing, extended his hand to her. She put her hand in his. 

‘But they’ll dance to this?’ 

‘Oh, yes,’ he said and with a roguish smile, pulled her close. She looked up at him in surprise, wondering why he was suddenly so forward, but then realised that that was not the reason. He changed the grip of the hand he already held and placed her other hand on his shoulder before putting an arm around her waist. 

‘Just do what I do but backwards,’ he told her, and started dancing. Together, only inches from one another, they started tracing a circle with their steps. Scarlette tried to simply follow him, and after the first minute of power-struggle, she found the rhythm of the dance. 

‘It’s called the waltz,’ the Doctor said, his mouth not far from her ear. ‘It’s still a decade or two away, but it’ll cause scandal.’ 

‘It would,’ Scarlette said approvingly, unable not to laugh. She was enjoying being this close to the Doctor. For the past few months, she had wanted to be, but seeing as he was engaged to her ward, she had felt that approaching him about it would be unwise. Now, she pressed a little closer, and his arm around her waist tightened. The music swelled, and the triple time became clear as a strange heartbeat. They danced in silence for a while, progressing around and around the salon, until the Doctor whispered: 

‘ _Sphären-Klänge_.’ 

‘What does that mean?’ Scarlette whispered back. 

‘Music of the Spheres,’ he translated. ‘It’s the title of this piece. Josef Strauss, opus two-hundred and thirty-five. First performed in 1868.’ He finished the turn they were on in silence, then said: ‘Can you hear them - the planets moving? Celestial music?’ 

‘Yes.’ Yet Scarlette knew that whatever she heard that might seem like the music of the spheres, it was not of the same kind as what the Doctor was born to hear. Still, perhaps it was close enough. Here she was, dancing a future dance with an elemental, to music which would not be written for another eighty-six years. She would not live to hear it in its own time - had it not been for her meeting this man, she would never had heard it.This was a rare privilege, perhaps even a unique one. 

In this tranquil moment, lulled by the music, dancing with the Doctor’s arms around her, the threat against the world did not seem real. Recently she had felt pessimistic about their chances of success, but perhaps this was the proof that time would not end soon. If it did, the music they were dancing to now would never be written, but as it existed, surely they would succeed? The thought flooded her with relief, and she smiled. The Doctor smiled back at her, an unworldly glint in his eye. 

They danced to the end of the piece and then through the next two. Then the gramophone gave a sigh and a strange rasping sound, as the arm fell off the record. The Doctor let go of her, and she watched him removing the gramophone’s arm from the record. He took the pile of records with him to the armchair and sat down to catch his breath, while he looked through the pile. Scarlette remained standing, leaning against the back of one of the chairs as she watched him. Sometimes he glanced up at her for a moment. She could sense him weighing his options, imagining dancing this or that anachronistic dance with her. She smiled to herself; the dances most men considered with her were quite different even from waltz. Sometimes she wondered if the Doctor was aware of that. Surely he could not be so oblivious? She certainly did not want him to be... As she watched him stroke his beard and mumbling to himself, she felt a wave of affection for him. 

‘Hm... No. Or...? Aha! Yes, of course. Yes.’ He had pulled out a bright-red record-cover and jumped out of the armchair with surprising agility for a sick man. He put the record on the gramophone, then whirled around to look at Scarlette. His eyes were startling in their intensity. It made her wonder whether he had a fever - maybe she should make him lie down and rest properly - but then she thought it was probably only mental agitation. He looked happy, even ecstatic. 

‘Scarlette, if I lead, will you follow?’ She stared at him for a moment, not certain if he was talking about the dance or something else, more significant. 

‘Yes, of course.’ He grinned. 

‘Wonderful.’ Then he looked her up and down and scratched his chin, considering something. ‘Yes, they’ll have to go,’ he murmured to himself, and then without warning, took her arm and pulled her close.

She stumbled against him, her chest colliding with his and her feet ending up on his toes. He did not let her fall, but steadied her and smiled at her. Slightly winded, she was just about to ask him why he had tugged at her like that when he grabbed the skirt of her dress and pulled it up. 

‘Doctor!’ she exclaimed. She was so used to play-acting being startled and disapproving when men did such things that she was not certain how much of her surprise were genuine. Then she laughed, no longer alarmed, as she realised what was happening. ‘Doctor, you should have said earlier...’ He smiled at her again and pulled the skirt up so that it lodged between their bodies. She expected him to raise her petticoats too, but instead, he reached around her waist and undid the ties in them. They did not fall, but hung from her hips. Scarlette felt the sudden burn of arousal coursing through her lower body. The Doctor still had not taken his eyes off her face - unusual, she reflected, but not unheard of. Now that the ties were loosened, his hands moved to her hips. He grinned again and then in one swift motion, look hold of the uppermost petticoat and crouched, pulling it down with him. 

Scarlette exhaled, her breathing so heavy that it felt like she was fighting for air. The Doctor was on his knees in front of her, looking up. The red fabric of her skirt pooled around his elbows as he reached under it and pulled off the remaining petticoats. She wondered what he was planning. Had he fallen to his knees like that because it seemed like an easy way of getting her petticoats off (which could just as well be lifted)? Or was he planning to pleasure her with his tongue? Some men enjoyed that, and as they usually found it too embarrassing to suggest, they would just act on the impulse. Scarlette looked down at those intense, unworldly eyes, and bit her lip to calm herself. It was a long time ago she had been overtaken with arousal like this. Usually she willed the beginnings of it and feigned the rest, but this was genuine and completely beyond her control. 

‘Doctor...’ she gasped. 

Suddenly, he was on his feet again, still looking at her. 

‘Your petticoats would be in the way for this dance,’ he explained. His voice was perfectly calm, his breathing completely normal. Only his eyes burned. 

‘We’re dancing?’ Scarlette choked. She could not help feeling offended, but the Doctor just grinned. 

‘I promise, you’ll like it.’ He turned away from her to start the gramophone. While he had his back to her, Scarlette pulled her hair back, rubbed her face and took a deep breath, hoping to compose herself a little. The hiss of the needle against the record could be heard now. The Doctor turned back. His grin was gone, and the expression that had taken its place was as intent as his gaze. 

‘Follow me,’ he told her again and stepped so close that her breasts were pressed against his chest and their noses almost touched. His arm came around her back, more tightly this time, and he took her hand, raising it. She put her hand on his shoulder as he had shown her and met his gaze. They stood for a moment, breathing each other’s breaths. Then the music started playing. 

The dance was not a separate act from the music. It seemed instead as the physical incarnation of the melody, which almost seemed to spring from the movements of their bodies. They moved as one - now, their previous waltzing seemed as slow and decorous as a minuet. There were none of the soft movements of the previous dance. Instead, their steps were fast and commanding. The Doctor may be leading, but Scarlette could feel a power of her own, in the boldness of the music. If the waltz had been the sound of the turning of the planets, this was the sound of much more intimate workings. It gave voice to her dizziness, her sweetly searing nerves and her growing impatience. The Doctor may have failed to notice it before, but now he must know. The passion between them seemed to be mounting, so thick that she could not even will herself to lean in and kiss him. The steps were complex, but she followed them without tripping or stepping on his toes. It was as if the Doctor was dictating the steps to her inside her head, when in fact all he did was to lead her and sometimes press her hand as a signal. His breath was on her face, still cool but undeniably faster. His eyes looked more than hectic - almost deranged. She wondered what her own eyes looked like. They probably looked just as mad. 

The music reached its climax, and with the same kind of determination with which he had pulled off her petticoats, the Doctor adjusted his grip around Scarlette’s waist and felled her over his knee. She expected to fall, but aptly, he lowered her down, suspending her from his arm and over his knee. Her body formed a calculated, fast-moving arch. At the same moment as he stopped her descent, the last beat of the piece sounded. 

They stayed in that awkward position for a second or so, unaccustomed to the silence. Scarlette watched the room which was turned the wrong side up, and felt the Doctor’s breath against her throat. With little effort at all, he pulled her up onto both feet and let go of her. She felt light-headed in a welcome way. They watched each other, both breathing heavily. Finally, the Doctor asked: 

‘Another one?’ 

Scarlette shook her head. 

‘I think I’d die if I danced another one of those.’ The Doctor watched her for a moment, as if wondering whether to smile, but then simply nodded. 

‘Yes. Me too.’ They caught each other’s eyes again. The controlling force of the music was gone. Scarlette stepped forward - one, two, three, four - and the Doctor walked backwards - five, six, seven, eight. They were feet apart, then inches, close enough to waltz, then to tango...

...Then Scarlette’s mouth was on the Doctor’s. He backed into the pianoforte, and the impact made the arm of the gramophone jump over the record, screeching and then starting to play in the middle of a piece. Scarlette put her hands on his cheeks, pressing him closer as he deepened the kiss. Still locked together in the kiss, the Doctor stepped away from the instrument and spun her around, so they changed places. She pulled and he pushed closer, walking into the pianoforte again. Scarlette laughed against his mouth, and he against hers. 

For this dance, she lead and he followed.


End file.
